Jim Poesl

Today on The Jay Allen Show, Jay speaks with Jim Poesl from Safety Wars. This conversation goes all over the place, they discuss Jim career, pain points during Jim youth, and the state the world is in to name a few.

Don't miss this episode of The Jay Allen Show, featuring Jim Poesl from Safety Wars.

The transcript is not perfect.

[00:00:02] spk_0: this show is brought to you by safety FM. While hello and welcome to another episode of the J allen, joe. Hopefully everything is good and grand in your neck of the woods. I think it's funny that every time we start off the show, I never know where to go. 333 episodes in and I still kind of contemplate on where to start off every time that we get this thing started. Well, let me not babble too much and let's start getting into what's going on today. Today, I have the opportunity, after a long period of time to sit down with jim proposal. You know, the host of Safety Awards, we sit down, we talk about his career, what he has going on, his point of view on life, on how things are going at the moment. And of course we talk about his show, Safety wards. Now, don't get me wrong, puzzle has been here for quite a bit. And this is the first time that we get to sit down together at least behind the microphone for the well to hear about what exactly we have going on. So sit back, relax and take a listen to this conversation between jim proposals and yours truly here on the J allen joe show is streaming now on safety FM dot life. So let's go through this. Let's start talking because here's the thing I want to tell you, number one, I owe you an apology. This is what we're going to start off with. So I'm gonna let everybody know this because I normally start people off on the station and I normally interview them at some point and you've been on here now and we have never sat down and done this aficionado officially on the actual air. So that's why I need to apologize. Starting off right away. Well, uh, in your defense, you had mentioned it a long time ago and the schedule does not allow it. Uh, our schedules, why you can get up four o'clock in the morning and come and hang out with me before I start getting ready for the other stuff. Well I guess I could, but that would be a really interesting interview for us. Yeah, definitely make it an interesting time. So for those people that don't, that might not know jim polls will actually host that. The show safety wars here on the station, but some people might not know some of the other portions of your background and that's what I really wanted to get into with you today. How did this all start? I mean, how did you decide, Hey, this is the world I want to get into because this is not normally somebody wakes up in the morning and says, Hey, safeties away. Well, it's funny you should mention that because four days ago I celebrated if you want to call on the celebration 29 years in the industry, Holy Holy Yeah, started out uh, 1992. I graduated from Richard Stockton University and I had a background in environmental studies with, and geotechnical really didn't work soil sampling, water sampling, a monitoring well, installation things of that nature. So about 13 months into it, there was a layoff at the company. There was a contract was lost and I was sitting around for about an hour, not an hour, a month in uh, an hour. That's not bad now that a month I'm sitting around and uh, no sending out now. Back then we had paper resumes. We had things of that nature. So making phone calls, cold calls. This that the other thing. And I got a phone call from a friend in from college and her boyfriend, his name is john Danowski. He said, you know, jim you know how to run their sampling equipment and they're monitoring equipment. I said, yeah, I said, have you ever done any health and safety work? And I said, well, I didn't write to know inventories. My old employer that was maybe 15 20% of the time where you're doing inventories of school districts. So you've got a whole bunch of school district contracts and then you try to match up the MSD sms. Remember pre internet days? All right. So you had fax machines, You had phones, you had snail mail and it was just a behemoth task south. Uh what ends up happening? He says, well, why don't you come down and talk to my boss if you like it, Right, Don't stick with it. If you don't like it then that that's one thing you know if you know you don't like your 22 years old who cares? Right, take a chance on it. So uh we ended up Staying there for now for 29 years in the industry and we mostly I came up through the environmental consulting field doing hazmat work, hazardous waste site operations and emergency response. And then eventually I was about 6.5 years later I was hired on with an engineering firm And I stayed there for 6.5 years and then I left the engineering firm and started with a bunch of other folks about 2004. Yeah but you're gonna give me your you're gonna give me your whole resume before you even now ask questions. So hang on, hang on listen I get too far. So what what what means you want to stay around? What did you like about it at the time? Didn't like anything about it? It's not much has changed in 29 years. Goodman says you find out safety sucks if you're a consultant with no authority, very little leadership skills. I mean I did a complete personality change from then until now really and uh very very it's very difficult. But what happened was uh what made up for everything was the, I got a lot of time off between projects and a lot of overtime, a lot of her damn and you know that it was and I got to see a lot of places I got to be. I got to go all over the country basically and actually stay there for three or four months and a cliff sometimes longer and got to know people. So I got to see things that I probably would not have seen had I gotten involved in manufacturing or anything else. So at this point, are you already with your wife or not yet? No, not yet. That was 2009 september. Okay. So there's, so there's a big gap in there because I'm going to say if your God months at a time, I don't, you're going to have to tell me the secret sauce here because that, that I still don't understand. Well, unfortunately, most of the people in our situation that did that type of work, multiple divorces or they never get married, it's just goes along with it. I as you know, my extended family is involved in environmental consulting, environmental cleanups and they, uh, no, it's it's very, very difficult on the family at times. I mean, and that's and that's kind of one of those weird things that comes about with this industry, especially because there's a lot of safety professionals that are out there that travel. Um, and it becomes that weird clip where you go, okay, I can travel and make money or I can stay home and try to do something else. And it's kind of the mixture of the two of which one do you kinda to look at? Because I'll tell you, I know a lot of people that were in South Dakota that we're helping out from the safety standpoint when the oil fields out there helping out so on. And then it becomes one of those things, well, let's put a significant strain on my marriage, but I'm also making quite a bit more money than what would normally be making in any other state. Uh One of my wife's former coworkers got involved in that situation uh, where they, where their spouse and of getting a job on the oil fields, they bought a house, got all set up, and then six months later everything went bust. So, uh, you know, it's a big strain. It's not for the faint of heart, it, but I know I've seen it work, but you need a very understanding spouse who's able to trust you and you're able to trust them. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a difficult thing. I mean, the whole trust thing, of course, we can talk about it all the time. The other portion about this though is are you okay with saying, okay, I'll see you once every other weekend or once a month if you're even able to do that. I almost look at it. You almost have to look at it from a military standpoint. If you're going to commit to being gone for a long period of time, are you going to be okay with that kind of relationship? Uh, big thing. I mean, for when I sat down and we decided to have a family, uh, we knew that this traveling thing would be over where I'll go out now for maybe a week, two weeks at the absolute max. And my wife is the same way she travels now. She's going to start traveling again right now that Covid is over. Hold on. Let's kind of a phrase that depending on one part of the country, your heart, I'm concerned. I don't know if we want to get into that. We can't because it's, it's an interesting conversation, but let's not get into it yet. But we will, we'll, we'll redirect here in a moment. So I extremely difficult giants, uh, for I don't know anyone who is because who has a happy marriage to be honest with you in the long term. I mean that's what I was gonna say. If you do that, you don't know anybody who has this happy marriage. We're probably gonna be having some problems here. If we, if we continue talking right like this, you're the safety guy now and I try to get along with everybody. I really do know regardless of what happens on safety wars, I get all I try to get along with everyone. Making an effort to get along with everyone. And what happens is I become like the big brother. Especially since I've gotten older. I'm the big brother to a lot of these folks, they view me as that they come in and uh trim I have this problem, jim I've been cheating on my wife and I got someone else pregnant. That's a very common one. I think this is a very common conversation that people have with you. Yeah these three or four times a year. Oh okay please continue. Last. Very interrupting. Yeah. Usually is like well I'm not a marriage counselor, I'm not a life coach here and I think you should get that straightened out. But it's nice to have that type of relationship with the workforce because with what we do with safety. No and if they're willing to share that with me they're more likely to comply and come to you with safety issues and work with them on all the other problems. Hold on. That's such a huge people. I mean you just kind of glanced over that like that was nothing. I mean I think about this kind of in a weird scenario. So what happens if you know the spouse and this person is coming from the spouse? Okay well that's what I never ever would know the spouse. Okay. And that hasn't happened. But you know that unwanted pregnancies. And it's always the men and the women don't come to me with this. It's always you probably get, wow. Uh We took a different choice. That's what I hear. Uh No. You name the type of advice that someone's gonna ask who you we would ask for an older adult, A big brother. For lack of a better word. Not on the jobs you name it. I've gotten. Well that's so interesting that people are willing to open up to you in that particular fashion. Now what do you think it is about your personality that attracts this? I don't know. I can't I can't tell you people share things with me that they probably shouldn't share with me. Uh huh. You know it's the nature of the beast where you have to you have to be able to people have to be able to trust you uh with things. No, just the way I am, I'm I get people get the impression that I'm trustworthy for some reason, they come to me with these issues and uh a lot of times it's the stories they hear me share the stories, I was gonna say, have they not heard safety wars? I mean, they're trusting you after listening to that. Uh let me put it, I had this one coworker, former coworker of mine. Uh she's moved on in the oil industry. She texts me and she says, jimmy, I know who you're talking about in every one of these stories. And I said, well, they're not all from your facility. But uh no, it's I don't I don't know, I used to not be this way. but what happens is you have to, my first boss is by the name of Jeff Olcott. Uh When I got into the safety industry, uh he passed away a while back. He said jim you gotta go in there and you're just going to say you look you don't care what people think about you, if you worry about what people think about you, you're not gonna get anywhere. Because I used to be a big deal with me was worrying about what anyone else is gonna think and at a certain point now you just have to not care about the way that I feel with it. Is this uh why should I care about what whoever it is is thinking about me? I don't think that they go home worrying about what jim polls will thinks about them. Okay. Right. Does that make sense to you? J no, it does make sense. But I don't know. We we kind of live in a in an interesting time when it comes to all that because I know there's there's a lot of people out there and say I don't care what others think about me. Um There's other people that will that's that's their lifeline in regard to what others um think about. But because of where you're at and let me kind of just kind of give a breakdown because you are in consulting and because you actually host a program where you have to be likeable to an extent. Doesn't that kind of it doesn't play any kind of factory. Yeah. I have to be likable. Yeah. You know it's the likability factor I guess. But I say things very boldly since I say things boldly I realized that as a consultant, we're with my customer base, they're paying me to give them an honest opinion. They're not paying me to kill him. Elena baloney. Right? Look at you being to G look at you being pG. I try to be pg. Alright. Not the rated R. This is a great album shot, this is not the rated R. You can rate it whatever we want. But you know that's i you have to be likeable with people, you have to get along with them. Uh with uh there's always the phrase to hackneyed phrase uh no make friends and influence people. Uh It's leadership, that's my big theme and everything is leadership. What is leadership? I've talked about it on the podcast this week. Uh I've had some work done on the house. I haven't been able to I've had workmen over so I haven't been able to record anything. Mhm. But As leadership, how do you influence people become a person of influence, identify the leadership in the workforce. So one of my my things is let's say you have a workforce to 30 or 40 people. You don't want to approach 30 or 40 people with safety. But in that collection of 30 or 40 people there are leaders in their it could be a like a foreman or a boss, right? That's a leader, that's your natural leader. But I find that those are not necessarily the leaders. It could be the senior person on the crew. It could be the veteran would be another Good one. it could be someone who speaks the best English. It could be someone who speaks the worst english that means sound opposite. Maybe maybe someone who went to college, maybe the guy who never went to college or the girl I never went to college, you have to be able to identify who those leaders are and that if you can influence them Now all of a sudden you want that from 30 people, maybe down in two or three people. But that's a skill that you developed at some point. So when did you start recognizing how important this was to be able to move forward with? It gets too late in my career. Way too late? Uh, 29, years in. When do you start thinking that this is too late? And if you tell me, you tell me two years in, I can understand that. But what are we realistically talking? Probably about 30. And you looked at me like, oh, you're shocked 13 years in. I did not have a lot of very good mentors and a lot of areas of my life. Uh I don't know how deep you want to go in here, but we can go as deep as you want. I mean remember this is this is all about you. So I always tell me whatever you want to tell me I'm willing to share. So I was born with a cleft lip, bilateral cleft lip cleft palate. You can go, anyone can google that. I see the pictures of other kids for that. Bullied, put down, beaten down, psychologically abused, not by family members but by people outside the family. Have a very supportive family Alright. People outside the family uh in New Jersey where I grew up Central Jersey, A lot of the stuff that was done to me was uh would probably be illegal today under the anti bullying laws and schools. I went to, I had uh went to a religious school from seventh grade and eighth grade. Our redeemer Lutheran school. I know you hate only name dropping, but Brittany Murphy, the actress is a graduate of their interesting, Uh, and then I went, what do you know that? I hate the name dropping him? I said, this report said about 10 times in the last month. Uh, sounds like something I would like. And then, uh, I went to a Catholic high school, Sandra's reduction. And I had a very strict upbringing in academically. and outside of that. My parents, my mother is a polish immigrant. My father's second generation immigrant from Germany. I had like the Eastern european prussian upbringing. Well, I will, I classify as very strict, very, this very, uh, no leadership skills. Now we are the parents, we are the, we are the teachers, you will do as we say x, y and z, blah, blah, blah. Very little freedom in that. So what do you think happens now that I go to college and this and that has some transition issues like most kids have, and then you go into the real world and you get trusted. You go into safety as a career now, you have almost no people skills, almost no leadership skills, no nothing. You're going to have a rough time. I had a rough time. And what happened was they eventually, and you're sitting in a hotel room and Lexington, Lexington Kentucky, actually win Winchester Kentucky and you're like, what the hell am I doing here? And that's when I started to develop a lot of different skills through reading. You're on the road, remember free Internet days, this was so I've read tons and tons and tons of books, but this is what the problem is. You cannot change horses in midstream. So at the end of the project, I'm on now, you go to a new project of new people, 99 per seven times new people. Now you can start to implement some of the things that you learned and your previous project into it and you slowly build on and on and on. It's a process takes years and uh I got involved and uh 2000 in politics and politics is all about likability, it's all about everything. So I was working on some campaigns, high level campaigns I want go into what they were and 2009 I decided, well look, I have all this, not accumulated knowledge of here now, I want to go in and I want to start applying it. So I ran for office, I ran from New Jersey Assembly in uh 2009 and Just from talking to people doing it on and on and on every day every day and not done something like 25,000 doors, and talk, to which was unheard of. It's unheard of today. It was unheard of them also. So you have to go and you need to learn to talk and you develop your skill, same thing with safety training. I'm an outreach trainer and all four disciplines, Right? Uh, somebody, uh, I was on a site in pennsylvania at uh, Sanofi Pasteur in swift water where they, the construction manager had to get. That was their policy that the construction manager gives safety training, orientation training. He says after about six months, Hey, I can't do this every day, jimmy. Are you interested in it? Absolutely. And then it was soon safety training again and again and again. Before you know it, you can find out what works and what doesn't work. And he's trying to build on that and that's trust. You have to set goals, you have to build on things, doing things consistently and then then you improve. There is no other way of doing this. I was a slow basically At 21, I had the maturity when I graduated college the first time I had the maturity of maybe a 14 or 15 year old. Well, let me backtrack because you gave a lot of information here and I want to make sure that I have a clear understanding. You said that you were bullied because of the cleft palate when you were younger now and you said that you had a tough upbringing because parents or parents in the way that it was instructed based on, on background and culture, which I understand now. Were you able to discuss the bullying aspect inside of your home? Nobody, nobody really, You know, you just deal with it. That's one of those things. It's 1970s and 80s. You just deal with it and you internalize a lot of it. I know I learned eventually. What happens is it gets better. You got for a group of core people that you deal with. Right? four or 5 people click for lack of a better word with me. It was in track and field. I had my track and field click. That's what we handed and we were very successful. Even today, uh, we have a a text message group, have all of the track and field people, right? So we don't go on facebook, we don't, we just keep the text message. Uh, no. And you have a core group of people that you support yourself. Some of them, some of us are not misfits like me, like, you know, I'm definitely a misfit, so I understand what, you know, and that's where we kept with, but what you don't realize is this, and I didn't know about this until my 25th reunion because I was always doing the right thing as far as being consistent, working hard and everything else there. I found out that I saved the life of a classmate, not even know that did not even know this. And uh, I can't really describe anything because he's a public figure and right now. And uh, he says, comes up to my wife, I haven't seen him in 25 years since graduation day. He says, comes up to my wife, he says, Deb, you're Debbie. So let me explain to you what kind of man you married. He said I was going through a rough time in high school. You're and I it's one of those things I don't even remember doing this. He said I had a conversation with your husband and because of that conversation and he told me to just forget about it. But your nose to the grindstone and continue to work. I didn't commit suicide sour. 11 thing I didn't realize you hear this and you don't realize it until this and this is a true story. Uh my mother, the only one in the media for lack of better word that was had the same issues I did. It was successful, was facing huge. The actor right famous after all different movies, especially for his voice and I had horrible. My speech therapy was, I went to like nine years of speech therapy, you couldn't even understand me. It's a miracle that I, we're even having this conversation. That's how that was. And my mother was saying, hey look Stacy Keach did it, you can do it. So I, we got Debbie and I got married or and a local restaurant burger place and we always used to go to and at this time I had been starting to get pretty successful in the business and everything. Things are starting to move along. We had gotten married, she was pregnant with our first child and uh we were celebrating something professional, something I reached a milestone and woman comes up to me, she's a waitress and she says, let me explain to you, I'm seeing in the window, We knew her for Elna restaurant. My son was dressed form with cleft lip cleft palate. Three weeks ago. I was in complete and total uh destroyed. Until I came in here one day I saw your wife is pregnant, You have a normal life because you did. I have all the confidence in the world. That my son will be able to accomplish something. And that is what I finally learned the lesson. I guess you have to, you don't know how you're impacting people through everything we do and here you go. Here you have one. I impacted someone. I mean you impacted to people. I mean so far that at least that came up to you and said something about it. But it's interesting on how we don't notice how those impacts are. You're going to a restaurant, you're living everyday life ever so frequently going to this restaurant, this lady sees you. Then you have this classmate that you haven't spoken to in 25 years. And I mean I would imagine anytime that anybody words you want to know what kind of man you married has to be a scary thought just for half a moment before they like, what did I do, What did I do in high school? But definitely then he goes into this and says, hey, listen, this is what, what you've done. But when you take a look at this and you kind of go through all your different, all your different answers so far, You said that when you came out of college as well, you didn't have the, you have the maturity of a 14, 15 year old. So how did you see this change? How did you see that? Because if we're talking 14, 15 at college, you have to almost look at what was the impact then at the age of high school, if you're already giving somebody kind of some knowledge base or you're turning around and telling them, hey, put your, put your nose to the ground and kind of move forward unknowingly of what the person is going through. So you have a maturity level of who knows what at the time and then all of a sudden you're moving forward. I mean there's a lot of stuff here, but you move quick so I can't even keep up with you. It's like this Children come out with the darndest things. Sometimes I have two Children of my own. Hold on. Isn't that old Bill Cosby show? I don't know if that's a reference we want to make me, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I don't know. I'm kidding. I'm joking. Yeah. But anyway, uh, they say the stranger things at the right time. So for example, you don't think your Children listen to you on the radio or on conference calls or whatever. My wife is uh, bringing in some packages in a plastic bag about a year ago. My son was eight at the time and something leaked in the bag. Right? Normal. And she's like, I don't get it at the plastic, it leaked when it's in a plastic bag and it's leaking on the ground. That's frustrating. Nothing says he says, mom, don't you understand, there is a couple of different ways for liquids to get through plastic, its degradation per me, a shin and penetration. This is you're dealing with penetration because it's going through because it takes a while for the liquid to get from one side, uh, per me asians and get from one side to the other. Where does that come from? eight year old his dad, he says, you're listen to your dad too much. Oh, that could be a good thing, uh, torment because at three years of age, he was talking about the hierarchy of controls and I have it on video. You said at christmas stuff, just make sure you save that for a later date. When when you start, when you want to actually show him something like I got the career path for you. Here you go. So as you've been through this and you've looked at this and you are able to be able to change the things even though you said you really didn't have strong mentors, how did you make this work for you? Because based on what you're saying, you didn't have a systematic, you didn't have a plan, You kind of fell into it to some extent, you did 20 you've done 29 years so far. You're not going anywhere anytime soon. Based on some of the side conversations we've had, how have you made this work trial and error? But I mean is it trial in europe trial error in adaptability? Because you say that you're adaptable to the places that you've been, you've learned one thing in one place, you took it to the next, you adapted there. So I'm not trying to be insulting, but is it almost character playing because you're adapting to every time that you go somewhere new? I don't know what it is for sure. I just know that you have to have a goal and you have to work towards it and you have to go and be introspective. Uh what? This was one of the things, right? So being bullied when you're that young, you're not good enough for anything. I trust you got it, you got a complex in your ass, right? So professionally, what do we end up doing? All right, well, jim you don't have the knowledge for this, so you're not gonna advance jim, you know, blah blah, blah going on and on. So I'm sitting out on the job one day. This is I've been binghamton new york. And one of the guys says from another safety professionals says a couple years older since me jimmy. Uh What do you uh what are you doing here? I said well what do you mean says, how old are you? I said I'm 26 years old. He says why aren't you in graduate school? I said well my grades were not that great. An underground. He said maloney you have four years under your belt. You can go on to go to graduate school, go go to graduate school. So I went to N. J. I. T. Uh for my graduate work and he said this is what you do. You go in for continuing ed certificate, Make sure you get a zombies. And that continuing that program then apply for regular graduate school and see where it goes. Because if you can prove that you can do the work, chances are you can't guarantee it, but chances are they'll let you into grad school. So that's what I did. I was commuting from binghamton to new york to Newark, New Jersey twice a week for about three months. My loss and trigger you're serious. He said, okay, we're gonna put you on a job in the metro new york city area, you'll make it to grad school and then before long you start to accumulate things. Then you know, what else did you? Are you here? Well, you're, all you've got is a master's degree. You're, you know, you're not good enough then before you know it, I started going into and I know I completed at the end of this process not to drag it out. Uh I completed, I went to Rutgers University for all the continuing education programs, their certificate programs, the OSHA outreach stuff. I took pretty much everything about three classes. Why did you leave the three glasses? I mean if you took pretty much everything else, so before you continue and answer that question, why did you decide to go into environmental policy and studies? Why was that? The decision? Uh a lot of that had to do uh it's philosophy, legal stuff and but uh they allow you to take very technical courses. So I had a gradual level chemistry for example. And I like I'm a conversationalist if you haven't noticed. I like, you know, I never liked, you know, I could do the technical stuff. And it was funny was I went into one class With uh I said you know, I mean an easy class, I retook the 40 hour has fought for class uh from the summer school. And the professor says, jim he calls me and after, what the hell are you doing here? You're a policy guy. I never get policy guys in here. I said, well, I'm told what he did is and he says, okay, this is what we're gonna do. I'm gonna be out on this day, this day, this day, this day. You're going to teach the class. Very nice. So so did you decide to take tests on those days too? That way you can read it now? I'm joking. I'm joking. And what's funny is that he eventually I uh he works for me now. So after he retired. So uh you know whenever I need a toxicologist, I give him a call. So let me ask you a question about the schooling portion. So you finish you get your master's before you go into Rutgers, you go back to, I mean, are you still working at the same place that you were working at the time or? Okay, I still work there. Uh I was on a project in northern California after I graduated, and the only opportunity that they had for me was northern California. Remember what you, once you get your degree, that's what I'm kind of intrigued because they're like, hey dude, that that was it. Yeah, that's nice. And make sure, and they also paid for it, They said just make sure you pay, you pay, you pay us back. Oh, so they didn't actually require you to say some kind of amount of time then? No. Uh yeah, they did okay, you have to pay them back and see a certain amount of time, wow, that's that's incorrigible. Yeah, so, uh more to the story than that, I don't want to gloss over it, but I don't feel like ending up in court, so okay over it. So we'll be back right after this. No, I'm joking. Uh, basically the only opportunity was northern California by parents are getting older and again, we went into it at the beginning of this, I wanted to get married, have kids, have a family. You cannot do that when your mobile for months and months and months